Teaching & Learning Strategies

General Consideration

Some general considerations worth keeping in mind…

Dividing the Responsibilities

To the extent to which it is manageable, students with disabilities bear the primary responsibility not only for identifying their disabilities but for making necessary adjustments to the learning environment for reading and taking notes, for example. For testing arrangements and the use of department resources, the cooperation of academic staff is vital.

Staff-Student Relationships

Dialogue between the student and lecturer is essential early in the term and follow-up meetings are recommended. Staff should not feel apprehensive about discussing the student's needs as they relate to the course. There is no reason to avoid using terms that refer to the disability, such as ‘blind’, ‘see’ or ‘walk’. However, care should be taken to avoid generalising a particular limitation to other aspects of a student's functioning. Often, for example, wheelchair users are spoken to very loudly, as if they were deaf. The student will probably have had some experience of the kind of initial uneasiness you may bring to the relationship. The student's own suggestions, based on experience with the disability and with school work, are invaluable in accommodating disabilities in college.

Attendance and Promptness

The student using a wheelchair or other assistive devices may encounter obstacles or barriers in getting to lectures on time. Others may have periodic or irregular difficulties, either from their disability or from medication. Flexibility in applying attendance and promptness rules to such students is helpful.

Lecture Room Adjustments

A wide range of students with disabilities may be better served during lectures by making book lists available prior to the beginning of the course, by thoughtful seating arrangements, by speaking directly toward the class and by writing key lecture points and assignments on the board.

Functional Problems

In addition to the adjustments that will be discussed in detail for each disability, some understanding is required in working with more subtle and sometimes unexpected manifestations of disability. Chronic weakness and fatigue characterise some disabilities and medical conditions. Drowsiness, fatigue or impairments of memory or speed may result from prescribed medications. Such difficulties should be distinguished from the apathetic behaviour it may resemble.

Note-taking

Students who cannot take notes or have difficulty taking notes adequately can be helped by allowing them to tape record lectures, by permitting them to bring a note-taker to lectures, by making an outline of lecture materials available to them or by assisting them in borrowing classmates' notes.

Testing and Evaluation

Depending on the disability, the student may require the administration of examinations orally, the use of readers and/or scribes, extensions of time for the duration of exams, a modification of the test formats or, in some cases, make-up or take-CONTENTS exams. For out-of-class assignments, the extension of deadlines may be justified. The objective of such considerations should always be to accommodate the student's learning differences, not to water down scholastic requirements. The same standards should be applied to students with disabilities as to all other students in evaluation and awarding marks.